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Teachers for Rural Schools : Experiences in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and UgandaAchieving universal primary education and "Education for All" (EFA) is one of the development priorities within the context of the millennium development goals. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, one of the key challenges is to provide good-quality basic education to the 10-20 percent of primary school-age children who are still out of school. Among these out-of-school children, the most difficult to reach are living in rural and remote areas. In recent years, large investments have greatly improved school infrastructure and access, but finding effective ways of supplying teachers to schools in rural and remote areas remains a key policy concern. To examine the issues related to providing teachers for rural schools, five countries-Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda-prepared national case studies and, along with representatives from Zambia, came together for a workshop on "policy, planning, and management of rural primary school teachers" in Lesotho in May 2005. Building on the national reports, this workshop considered the challenges of teacher provision in rural areas and examined the viable policy options.
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Abolishing School Fees in Africa :
 Lessons from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and MozambiqueThis book constitutes one of the main
 outputs of the School Fee Abolition Initiative (SFAI). The
 initiative, launched in 2005 by the United Nations
 Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Bank, was
 designed to support countries in maintaining and
 accelerating progress toward universal primary education as
 outlined in the Millennium Development Goals and the
 Education for All (EFA) goals. Specifically, SFAI
 strengthens country efforts to eliminate school fees and/or
 implement targeted exemptions, subsidizations, and
 incentives to reduce education costs for the poor. The
 initiative has now grown into a broad partnership through
 the involvement of other key development partners and
 constituencies as well as research and academic
 institutions. SFAI promotes access to quality basic
 education worldwide through three specific and interlinked
 goals. The first is to construct a knowledge base on school
 fee abolition in order to inform sound and sustainable
 policies, strategies, and interventions. SFAI recognizes
 that school fee abolition is a complex process that requires
 both the development of a credible database and the solid
 analysis that builds on lessons learned from experience. The
 second goal is to provide guidance and support to countries
 in planning and implementing school fee abolition policies.
 Engagement by SFAI partners is taking the form of both
 technical and financial assistance within the framework of
 ongoing national planning processes. The third goal is to
 advance the global policy dialogue on the financial barriers
 to education access and to build on existing EFA
 partnerships. The result will ensure a good understanding of
 the complexities involved in school fee abolition,
 facilitate the articulation of complementary roles, and
 create an environment for success.
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Education in Sub-Saharan Africa : A Comparative AnalysisAs in most countries worldwide, Sub-Saharan African countries are striving to build their human capital so they can compete for jobs and investments in an increasingly globalized world. In this region, which includes the largest number of countries that have not yet attained universal primary schooling, the ambitions and aspirations of Sub-Saharan African countries and their youth far exceed this basic goal. Over the past 20 years, educational levels have risen sharply across Sub-Saharan Africa. Already hard at work to provide places in primary schools for all children, most countries of the region are also rapidly expanding access to secondary and tertiary levels of education. Alongside this quantitative push is a growing awareness of the need to make sure that students are learning and acquiring the skills needed for life and work. Achieving education of acceptable quality is perhaps an even greater challenge than providing enough school places for all. Thus, Sub-Saharan African countries are simultaneously confronting many difficult challenges in the education sector, and much is at stake. This book gives those concerned with education in Sub-Saharan Africa an analysis of the sector from a cross-country perspective, aimed at drawing lessons that individual country studies alone cannot provide. A comparative perspective is useful not only to show the range of possibilities in key education policy variables but also to learn from the best performers in the region. (Although the report covers 47 Sub- Saharan African countries whenever possible, some parts of the analysis center on the region's low-income countries, in particular, a sample of 33 low-income countries). Although countries ultimately must make their own policy choices and decide what works best in their particular circumstances, Sub-Saharan African countries can benefit from learning about the experiences of other countries that are faced with, or have gone through, similar development paths. Given the large number of countries included in the analysis, the book finds that Sub-Saharan African countries have more choices and more room for maneuver than will appear if attention were focused on only one or a few country experiences. Countries can make better choices when understanding the breadth of policy choices available to them. They are well advised, however, to evaluate the applicability of policy options to their contexts and to pilot and evaluate the results for performance and subsequent improvement.